3

The Wandering Eyes of Men

and Women: Sex Differences
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in Motivations for Infidelity

Sex differences appear to be biologically grounded, whereas attachment

style can be seen as environmental, if not cultural, to the degree that it is
shaped by culture-bound parenting styles. After all, sex differences may be
grounded in innate differences in fetal brain development, genital anatomy,
and the secondary sexual characteristics that arise with puberty. This may
be a false dichotomy, however. Adult romantic attachment as it facilitates
biparental care may be as much a human adaptation for reproductive suc-
cess as possessing a boneless penis rather than the baculum that most other
male primates have or a vagina that lacks notable vaginal swellings during
ovulation as occurs in many other female primates (Dixson, 1998). There
is no reason to assume that innate sex differences in humans are somehow
more biological or more determinative of human mating strategies than are
differences in adult attachment styles. Sex differences in physical anatomy as
well as mating strategies tend to diminish in monogamously inclined species
(Dixson, 2009).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000053-004
The Dynamics of Infidelity: Applying Relationship Science to Psychotherapy Practice, by L. Josephs
Copyright © 2018 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.

69
 The complicated empirical question is how innate sex differences inter-
act with attachment style to predict human mating strategies. Secure attach-
ment, the mating strategy of the more monogamously inclined, appears to
diminish sex differences, whereas insecure attachment, the mating strategy
of the less monogamously inclined, appears to exaggerate sex differences. The
so-called war between the sexes may obscure the more subterranean warfare
between more monogamously inclined individuals (the securely attached)
and individuals inclined toward infidelity and promiscuity (the insecurely
attached) regardless of self-identified gender.
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Gender role stereotypes about infidelity may be changing in more egali-

tarian societies where women appear to be catching up to men in terms of
prevalence rates of infidelity (Schmitt et al., 2004). Sex differences in infidel-
ity rates diminish when we look at women younger than 40 years of age or
when we use more inclusive definitions of infidelity (i.e., like kissing as well
as sexual intercourse; Brand, Markey, Mills, & Hodges, 2007; Wiederman,
1997). There might be ecological conditions that cut across cultures in which
infidelity might be to women’s reproductive advantage (e.g., when husbands
are cold, abusive, unfaithful, infertile, inadequate providers, sexually unsatis-
fying, or poor fathers).
On most individual difference variables, when there are significant
differences between the sexes, those differences aren’t that large (Costa,
Terracciano, & McCrae, 2001). Gender differences in infidelity diminish when
we compare men and women with equivalent levels of empathy (Shimberg,
Josephs, & Tittel, 2016). Impulsive individuals appear to be more inclined
to be unfaithful regardless of gender, whereas more conscientious individu-
als appear to be less inclined to be unfaithful regardless of gender (Schmitt,
2004). Individuals with greater executive control tend to be more faithful
(Pronk, Karremans, & Wigboldus, 2011). Sex differences in prevalence rates
of infidelity may be a function of sex differences in prevalence rates of differ-
ent personality types within different cultures.
Gender role stereotypes might seem confirmed to clinicians who treat
a disproportionate number of anxiously attached women who are not getting
the emotional intimacy they need and avoidantly attached men not get-
ting the sexual variety, novelty, and frequency they would like (Del Giudice,
2011). Anxiously attached women tend toward promiscuity and infidelity
(i.e., high-risk reproductive strategies), whereas anxiously attached men tend
toward sexual inhibition (i.e., low-risk reproductive strategies; Del Giudice,
2009). Avoidantly attached women and anxiously attached men seem to go
against gender role stereotypes. Thus, attachment style may determine the
degree to which men and women conform to gender role stereotypes.
Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that love, an attachment-
based emotion, and lust possess two different evolutionary histories and

70       the dynamics of infidelity

 different underlying neural circuitry and are regulated through different hor-
mones (i.e., oxytocin vs. testosterone; L. M. Diamond, 2004; H. E. Fisher,
2004). Levels of oxytocin, which regulates the attachment system, are approx­
imately 7 times higher in women than in men (Oatley, Keltner, & Jenkins,
2006), whereas levels of testosterone, which regulates the strength of the sex
drive, are approximately 7 to 8 times higher in men than in women (Dabbs,
2000). High prenatal testosterone levels “masculinize” the brain, creating
a brain that is relatively better at systematization than empathy, whereas
low prenatal testosterone levels “feminize” the brain, creating a brain that is
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relatively better at empathy than at systematization (Baron-Cohen, 2003).

“Gender benders” could therefore have a biological basis in women whose
brains have been masculinized and men whose brains have been feminized
by prenatal hormone levels.
H. E. Fisher (2004) proposed a third emotional operating system that
influences human reproductive psychology and is regulated by serotonin.
There may be a romantic love circuit in the brain that motivates individuals
to look for a unique soul mate, with whom there will be a meeting of minds
as well as bodies, that evolved to facilitate sexually exclusive pair bonding.
According to Fisher, there do not appear to be significant sex differences
when it comes to romantic love except that men are perhaps more inclined
to fall in love at first sight, whereas women are more inclined to wait to get
know the unique individual.

DO MEN THINK WITH THEIR PENISES?

Baumeister, Catanese, and Vohs (2001) published a controversial but

comprehensive literature review titled “Is There a Gender Difference in
Strength of Sex Drive?” There is no consensus in the field as to how best to
measure a concept as elusive as sex drive. These authors looked for converg-
ing lines of evidence by summarizing research using multiple measures and
multiple populations. They discovered that on all measures and in all popu-
lations, men possessed a stronger sex drive than women. They offered this
summary of their literature review:
Men think about sex more often, experience more frequent sexual
arousal, have more frequent and varied fantasies, desire sex more often,
desire more partners, masturbate more, want sex sooner, are less able
or willing to live without sexual gratification, initiate more and refuse
sex less, expend more resources and make more sacrifices for sex, desire
and enjoy a broader variety of sexual practices, have more favorable and
permissive attitudes toward most sexual activities, have fewer complaints
about low sex drive in themselves (but more about their partners), and

the wandering eyes of men and women      71

 rate their sex drives as stronger than women. There were no measures
that showed women having stronger drives than men. (p. 264)
Men’s stronger sex drive leads to certain typical marital conflicts. A typ-
ical source of marital conflict is that men are more likely than women to want
more sex, while women are more likely than men to want less sex (Johannes
& Avis, 1997). One frequently self-reported reason for women engaging in
sex is to placate men who are pestering them for sex (Meston & Buss, 2007).
Wives tend to report being satisfied with the amount of sex in their marriages,
whereas husbands on average would prefer a 50% increase (Ard, 1977). Men
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appear to initiate sex more frequently than women do (O’Sullivan & Byers,
1992), and women may be more likely to refuse sex than men (M. Brown &
Auerback, 1981).
Baumeister and Bratslavsky (1999) suggested that there may be a brief
honeymoon phase of romantic love during which intimacy and passion
are rapidly increasing and the couple’s sex drive may be perfectly matched.
Women are happy to have sex at a high frequency, and men are happy to
be emotionally intimate in their lovemaking. Unfortunately, as the honey-
moon phase of romantic infatuation based on mutual idealization wanes, men
return to wanting sex that is more casual than intimate but at a frequency
that remains as high as the honeymoon phase. They begin to feel smothered
by and resentful of the expectation to engage in a high level of intimate
relatedness every time they have sex. It strikes them as excessively needy.
Meanwhile, women begin to prefer a lower frequency of sex that preserves
the high level of emotional intimacy of the honeymoon phase. They resent
pressure to have casual sex without intimacy at the frequency men would
prefer. They begin to feel that their needs for emotional intimacy are being
rejected and that they are being shamed for being too needy and believe their
husbands are frightened of intimacy. This can be the beginning of communi-
cation breakdown in a marriage.
The honeymoon phase gives both genders false expectations of the kind
of sex life that might be reasonable to expect from a long-term monogamous
relationship. There is some disappointment and resentment that marriage
has not lived up to its advance billing. Disillusioned men then become more
inclined to be unfaithful because they are seeking the sexual frequency, vari-
ety, and novelty lacking in their marriage; disillusioned women become more
inclined to be unfaithful because they are seeking the emotional intimacy
and acceptance lacking in their marriage. As a consequence of these sex dif-
ferences, unfaithful men are much more likely to have multiple extramarital
partners than are women, who are more likely to have only one (Spanier &
Margolis, 1983).
One of the largest sex differences to emerge in the study of individ-
ual differences between men and women is the frequency of masturbation

72       the dynamics of infidelity

 (Oliver & Hyde, 1993). Males begin masturbating at an earlier age than
females, even though females enter puberty earlier than do males (Asayama,
1975). Even past age 60, men are still masturbating more frequently than
women (Bergström-Walan & Nielsen, 1990). When men lose one source of
sexual gratification, they are more likely than women to seek out a new one
as soon as possible (Leiblum & Rosen, 1988). Men seem to maintain a certain
level of orgasmic constancy from week to week, whereas women are more
likely to do without the sexual release of orgasm until they find their preferred
sexual outlet in an emotionally intimate sexual encounter (Kinsey, Pomeroy,
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& Martin, 1948; Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, & Gebhard, 1953).

As consequence of men’s attempts to maintain a certain level of orgas-
mic constancy, they are more likely to turn to private masturbation, pornog-
raphy use, or infidelity when feeling sexually frustrated in the marriage rather
than learn to make do without as women are more inclined to do. Women
low on reflective functioning who are happy with the frequency of sex or
make do without if they aren’t may egocentrically assume that men are not
seeking sexual outlets in between infrequent marital sexual episodes. They
may be shocked by exposure of their partners’ frequency of masturbation and
pornography consumption and experience the exposure of their partners’ pri-
vate sexual activity as implicit infidelity (Paul, 2005).
Robert Trivers (1972) developed parental investment theory to explain
the differences in sexual behavior between males and females in humans
and other animals. This theory suggests that the sex that invests less in off-
spring, usually but not always the male, is more competitive with rivals over
gaining reproductive access to the opposite sex and is less discriminating in
choice of partner. The lesser investing parent chooses a quantity-over-quality
reproductive strategy. The greater investing parent, usually but not always
the female, is more choosey in selecting a mate because a quality-over-
quantity reproductive strategy is being pursued. Men have the greater sex
drive because they are, on average, the lesser investing parent. On average,
men are more disposed toward a quantity-over-quality reproductive strategy.
The theory also implies that the most paternal men (i.e., securely
attached with more feminized brains) would be least likely to be unfaith-
ful, whereas the least maternal women (i.e., avoidantly attached with more
masculinized brains) would be most likely to be unfaithful. The most paternal
men will be more inclined to invest in parenting the children they have than
invest in pursuing new mates to have more children. The least maternal
women might invest more in further mating than parenting the children they
already have to acquire more resources or have more children with better
genetic quality. Gender benders may be an adaptive variation in reproduc-
tive strategy given the human strategic pluralism that generates individual
variability within each sex.

the wandering eyes of men and women      73

 The sex drive is designed by evolution to facilitate reproductive success.
Thus, in individuals pursuing a quantity-over-quality reproductive strategy,
sex drive is activated by variety and novelty (Buss, 2003). For heterosexual
males, gratifying the desire for sexual variety facilitates reproducing with as
many females as possible. Yet the sex drive in humans as well as other animals
also searches for what evolutionary biologists call sexually selected indicators
of fitness (Andersson, 1994). Men who are primarily attracted to infertile
women (e.g., postmenopausal women, prepubertal females, sickly women)
would not be as reproductively successful as men attracted to the healthi-
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est and most fertile women. The most reproductively successful men will
be attracted to the women most likely to give birth to healthy babies and to
those with the mothering skills to raise those children successfully to matu-
rity. As a consequence, men on average will be most attracted to women with
youthful good looks and nurturing personality characteristics. Gay men, like
straight men, prefer youthful good looks so are attracted to the secondary
sexual characteristics to which women are most drawn (Bergling, 2007).
Women will also be motivated to have sex with partners who possess
sexually selected indicators of fitness. Women will be more reproductively
successful if their children inherit genes that would predispose them to be
healthy, good-looking, athletic, dominant, popular, smart, and creative indi-
viduals. Such attractions express what Miller (2008) called mating intelligence
(i.e., adaptations for reproductive success). There is increasing evidence
that during ovulation, heterosexual women appear to be more attracted to
men who possess higher testosterone levels, greater facial symmetry (i.e., an
indicator of good health), and facial masculinity (Gangestad, Garver-Apgar,
Cousins, & Thornhill, 2014). With the advent of genetic testing, there is
better appreciation that a certain percentage of men are unknowingly rais-
ing children as their own who in reality are the result of extramarital affairs
that were never detected (Cerda-Flores, Barton, Marty-Gonzalez, Rivas, &
Chakraborty, 1999). Lesbian women, like heterosexual women, display mating
intelligence when they are drawn to women who are healthy, good-looking,
athletic, popular, smart, creative, and sensitive.
Heterosexual women report being attracted to “nice guys” (i.e., Dads)
for long-term relationships but being attracted to “bad boys” or woman­
izers (i.e., Cads) for short-term relationships (Kruger & Fisher, 2005). The
attraction to Cads appears to be stronger among women who are anxiously
attached and tend to pair with more avoidant men (Doumas, Pearson, Elgin,
& McKinley, 2008), the men most likely to split love from lust and be more
oriented toward casual sex, sexual variety, and infidelity.
Therapists can convey empathy for the frustrated lust that motivates
infidelity even though they are usually sympathetic to the sentiment that
“honesty is the best policy” given the research-based presumption that

74       the dynamics of infidelity

 the healthiest relationships are based on trust, honesty, and authenticity
(Wickham, Reed, & Williamson, 2015). Individual psychotherapy with
patients who have unsatisfactory marital sex lives is often about treating
ruminative thinking. What if the sexual aspect of the relationship is beyond
fixing, yet the patient still craves peak sexual experiences? Patients often
don’t like any of their choices (divorce, continue to have affairs and just live
with the guilt and dread of exposure, try an open arrangement, develop better
frustration tolerance and resistance to extramarital enticements), so they
torture themselves, obsessing about what the “right” choice is in their pre-
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dicament. Patients may procrastinate in coming to terms with a final decision

because the downside of whatever decision they make is significant, so they
keep postponing a definitive course of action, hoping a better solution will
eventually come along. There is an implicit expectation that the therapist
will come up with an ideal solution that doesn’t carry significant risk or cost.
Psychotherapy can seem like a waste of time if it means spinning one’s wheels
about the same old things week after week with a sympathetic therapist who
points out the pros and cons of different courses of action but leaves the ulti-
mate decision-making to the patient.
The therapist’s patience and nonjudgmental attitude help patients who
are conflicted about their undetected infidelity come to terms with their
unfortunate situation without undue self-blame and eventually reconcile to
a future course of action with all its anxiety-ridden risks and depressing costs.
In the end, the therapist can’t save patients from the negative consequences
of their choices, but they can only help them find a way to make the best of a
bad situation. Such a situation lends itself to a mindfully accepting approach
to therapy (Johns, Allen, & Gordon, 2015; Pierson & Hayes, 2007) in which
patients learn to tolerate the anxiety-ridden risks and depressing costs that
inevitably arise.
Chris, a good-looking and somewhat successful actor, came for psycho-
therapy because he felt guilt-ridden and confused about his history of cheat-
ing on his girlfriends to have casual sexual affairs that were easy to arrange
given his celebrity. He was often caught, and this was usually the beginning of
the end of the relationship. Chris felt that he couldn’t commit to monogamy
and didn’t know what to do. I asked Chris if he felt that open arrangements
might be an option. Chris reported that he didn’t think his current girlfriend,
Lucy, could handle it, although he felt he wouldn’t be jealous if Lucy had
sex with other people. No longer wanting to live a lie, Chris did propose an
open arrangement to Lucy, and as predicted, she broke up with him. Chris
felt relieved and decided that for the time being, he would just be a single guy
enjoying a casual sex life. He terminated treatment, thanking me for my help
in clarifying his inner conflicts and learning to approach intimate relation-
ships more honestly.

the wandering eyes of men and women      75

 A year later Chris returned for further treatment. He was having a casual
sexual relationship with an overburdened divorced mother, Beverly, who was
comfortable having an open relationship, although she had no need for other
lovers. Chris had begun to develop deeper feelings for Beverly and had pro-
posed a more committed relationship. Beverly felt that a deeper commitment
would require monogamy, so Chris was once again back in the same boat and
didn’t know what to do. He didn’t feel he could commit to monogamy, yet he
also didn’t want to lose Beverly or lie about casual sex outside of the relation-
ship. Once again Chris was ruminating on this issue and couldn’t make up
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his mind about what to do. He still wasn’t prepared to sacrifice sexual variety
for a long-term committed relationship or sacrifice a long-term committed
relationship for the sake of sexual variety.

ARE WOMEN “NEEDIER” THAN MEN?

There are two species of prairie voles. One is promiscuous, and the other
is monogamous. The monogamous prairie vole possesses more oxytocin recep-
tors in its brain, which makes sense because, as noted earlier, human women,
who tend to be more monogamous, have 7 times the circulating oxytocin
levels as men (Oatley et al., 2006). The monogamous prairie vole becomes
promiscuous if given a drug that blocks oxytocin reception. In contrast, the
promiscuous prairie vole becomes monogamous if given oxytocin (Carter,
DeVries, & Getz, 1995). Love driven by lust is regulated by testosterone, but
it seems that love driven by the need for attachment is regulated by oxyto-
cin, which inclines humans as well as other animals toward monogamy. The
lust circuit in the brain regulated by testosterone is basically promiscuous; it
seeks novelty, variety, and cues of fitness. In contrast, the attachment circuit
regulated by oxytocin facilitates monogamy by motivating the development
of a strong attachment bond to a specific nurturing caretaker that is not easily
replaceable.
The attachment circuit is looking for a secure long-term bond to a spe-
cific nurturing caretaker that will provide a secure home base, a sense of home
and family. Secure attachment means finding a partner who is warm, loyal,
devoted, trustworthy, open, and honest, and these are preferred traits in a
long-term partner (Buss, 1989). Emotional security comes from knowing that
our partner has “got our back” and will make sacrifices on our behalf. A part-
ner who is emotionally unavailable, selfish, unsupportive, distant, critical,
condescending, or philandering doesn’t meet the need for secure attachment.
The concept of neediness implies the possession of some unhealthy level
of dependency or need for reassurance that should be outgrown. From the
perspective of adult attachment, neediness is what any mature adult would

76       the dynamics of infidelity

 naturally feel when healthy and mature needs for secure attachment remain
unmet (Besser & Priel, 2008). Neediness is the experience of insecure and
anxious attachment. Individuals with anxious attachment tend to express
their neediness openly and may seem openly clingy, insecure, and unrea-
sonably demanding when fearing rejection and abandonment because their
attachment system is defensively hyperactivated. Individuals with avoidant
attachment are no less needy (i.e., no less insecurely attached), but they hide
their neediness beneath a pretense of self-sufficiency because their attach-
ment system is defensively deactivated (Shaver & Mikulincer, 2006).
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There are also significant individual differences among women and men
in oxytocin levels, although as discussed earlier, they are generally higher in
women than men (Bartz et al., 2015). Thus, some individuals may just be more
oriented toward monogamy than others because their oxytocin-driven attach-
ment needs are stronger, just as some individuals have stronger sex drives than
others. Gratification of a strong need for attachment is not a bad thing, just as
gratification of a strong sex drive is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, gratifica-
tion of the need for secure attachment has some remarkably beneficial effects.
Secure attachment in adults results in not only greater emotional security but
greater self-confidence and more fearless exploratory behavior (Wu & Yang,
2012). There is nothing needy or immature about getting needs for secure
attachment gratified; such gratification appears to be quite ego enhancing.
There do appear to be some associations between attachment style and
hormonal levels. High testosterone levels in men are associated with attach-
ment avoidance (Turan, Guo, Boggiano, & Bedgood, 2014). Relatively high
oxytocin levels were associated with attachment anxiety in women but not
men (Weisman, Zagoory-Sharon, Schneiderman, Gordon, & Feldman, 2013).
Looking at sexual desire and attachment as separate drives for which there
are significant individual differences in strength allows for a clinical stance
in which there is respect for those individual differences. Pathologizing what
seems to be an unduly strong or weak sex drive or need for attachment or a
gender atypical sex drive or need for attachment as something that “should”
be fixed tends to exacerbate marital conflict and make people feel bad about
who they are. If these are enduring personality traits, they are unlikely to get
fixed, at least not quickly. Romantic partners who believe that incremental
behavior change through hard work is possible may conclude that a failed
change attempt indicates that the person attempting to change simply did
not try hard enough and feel somewhat distrustful toward him or her. Partners
who view personality as more of a fixed entity are less optimistic about change
in the first place but are also less distrustful after failed attempts to change
(Kammrath & Peetz, 2012).
Marital adjustment is facilitated by learning to accept and commit to a
partner who seems excessively needy despite one’s relative self-sufficiency or

the wandering eyes of men and women      77

 to a partner who has a strong need for frequent casual sex despite one’s pref-
erence for sex with intimacy (Christensen & Jacobson, 1998). This doesn’t
mean learning to live with a partner who expresses neediness in abusively
demanding ways or a partner who gratifies a strong sex drive through ongoing
infidelity; we all have limits on what we can learn to live with. How much
frustration and disappointment someone can accept in a relationship is a dif-
ficult thing to estimate. That’s why people would generally prefer it if their
partner can be “fixed” so that they don’t have to come to terms with the limits
on how much a partner can change.
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Continually critiquing and complaining about the strength or weak-

ness of a partner’s sex drive or need for attachment in the hope that it will
lead to positive behavior change only shames partners for being who they are
and breeds feelings of resentment for being made to feel “not good enough.”
Couples’ sex drives and need for attachment are rarely perfectly matched
after the honeymoon phase. Couples, be they gay or straight, must learn how
to negotiate the frustration inherent in dealing with someone whose sex drive
and need for attachment is different from, and therefore conflicting with,
one’s own.
In long-term extramarital affairs, an attachment bond may be formed.
The affair partner becomes a source of emotional security and comfort for the
unfaithful partner, perhaps like a family member—a second wife or husband.
The affair may be as much about the affection and the mutual support that is
shared as it is about the sex, especially as the honeymoon phase of the affair
wanes. Human children have evolved to form multiple attachments to mul-
tiple caretakers as humans evolved to be cooperative breeders, although the
primary caretaker, usually the mother, still tends to be the object of primary
attachment (Meehan & Hawks, 2014). The capacity to form multiple attach-
ments to multiple parental surrogates may underlie polyamorous desires in
humans. Infidelity is more likely to lead to divorce and remarriage when the
affair partner becomes the primary object of attachment so that the relation-
ship with the affair partner becomes a more securely attached relationship
than that with the betrayed spouse.
Vincent, a middle-aged man, came for therapy conflicted about a 15-year-
long affair with a divorced mother who was his colleague. He felt sexually
frustrated in his marriage because he and his wife only had sex once every
6 weeks. Sex was becoming increasingly difficult because his wife, Alice,
had put on so much weight that he found it difficult for his penis to reach
her vagina, and he would begin to lose his erection. Vincent wouldn’t have
minded having oral sex instead, but his wife wasn’t interested in provid-
ing oral sex and tended to gag on his penis. His affair partner, Emily, was
up for anything. Vincent was often worried that his wife might catch him
one day. Sometimes she had dreams about him cheating on her, as though

78       the dynamics of infidelity

 her unconscious mind knew of the affair but her conscious mind denied her
intuition. Nonetheless, Alice reassured herself that he was too busy at work
to have time for an affair.
Emily would have liked Vincent to leave his wife for her but didn’t put
any pressure on him to do so. She had dated quite a bit and didn’t like what
was out there. She felt it was better to have a long-term affair with someone
she loved than to have no one at all. Although Vincent felt guilty, he appreci-
ated that implicitly both of the women in his life would allow him to live his
secret double life indefinitely without ever forcing him to pick one over the
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other. With his wife, it was “don’t ask, don’t tell.” After 15 years, the affair
with Emily was as much about the emotional intimacy as the sex. They often
spent time discussing issues at work in which Alice had little interest, as
well as issues with their children.
Vincent came for therapy feeling that after 15 years, he should finally
make up his mind and either leave his wife for Emily or end it with Emily and
recommit to his marriage. Living a secret double life was driving him crazy.
Vincent tortured himself with obsessive rumination about what he should do
to resolve this inner conflict because no potential solution seemed satisfac-
tory. What eventually emerged was a plan so secret that he didn’t even admit
it to himself: to retire to Arizona in another 5 to 10 years. At that point,
he would end the affair with Emily and recommit to a monogamous mar-
riage because he assumed that by that time, his sex drive would be so low it
wouldn’t be frustrating to live in a sexless marriage. He didn’t like to admit
that this had been his intention all along because it felt like a selfish, oppor-
tunistic, and exploitative way to conduct his love life.
Vincent confessed that he felt ashamed admitting this to me because he
assumed I treated women better than he did and that I would look down on
him like he was “the scum of the earth.” I admitted that it did make me feel
good about myself to treat women well and that I was not beyond indulging
in fantasies of moral superiority to my patients. Nevertheless, I appreciated
that it was my job to rise above indulging such ego-driven fantasies and have
compassion for the moral compromises that may be required to make the
best of a bad situation. I acknowledged that I was lucky my life was such that
I didn’t need to make the sort of moral compromises he felt compelled to
make. Vincent expressed appreciation for my honest and heartfelt response.
His ruminative worry subsided as he developed greater tolerance for living
with an unsatisfactory status quo with self-compassion rather than self-blame
when there seemed to be no preferable alternative.
Patients need to learn to mourn the loss of the more ideal love life for
which they have always longed when reality appears to require them to settle
for a compromise that seems barely good enough. It means mourning the loss
of a more morally ideal self-conception as the kind of person who doesn’t

the wandering eyes of men and women      79

 have affairs when in fact one is the kind of “selfish” person who does because
of an unwillingness to sacrifice sexual or romantic happiness to honor a com-
mitment to monogamy.
Betrayed partners often receive conflicting messages about how they
“should” cope with infidelity. Betrayed partners are often judged as “mas-
ochistic” if they choose to look the other way and remain loyal and faithful
to a philandering partner who “should” be either divorced or reformed. The
assumption is that a self-respecting individual should not remain loyal to
an unrepentant and unreformed serial philander that refuses to recommit to
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monogamy. Yet there can be an opposite judgment—that it is moralistic for

betrayed partners to judge unfaithful partners harshly because no one is per-
fect and humans may not be meant to be monogamous. Americans “should”
be more like the French and just take infidelity as a common part of married
life. Infidelity, according to this view, should not be a cause for breaking up a
marriage or a family but perhaps an inspiration to go out and have an affair
oneself because, after all, you only live once. From a therapeutic viewpoint,
what is often most helpful is being freed from the presumption that there is
one “right” way for betrayed partners to cope with exposed infidelity.

THE YEARNING FOR A SOUL MATE

Psychologists have long discussed the distinction between love and lust
and noted that love comes in many varieties. There is the love one has for one’s
parents, one’s children, one’s friends, and one’s lover, for example. All variet-
ies of love appear to activate the human capacity for developing strong bonds
of attachment. Yet only recently has there been appreciation that romantic
love, independent of sexual desire, can be separated into two separate compo-
nents, attachment as previously discussed and a more purely romantic emo-
tion. Patients in psychotherapy may regretfully say, “I love my partner, but I’m
not in love with my partner.” What they seem to mean is that they care deeply
about their partner as a person, are concerned for their partner’s welfare, and
would like to stay connected to them forever, like a brother or a sister (i.e.,
attachment), but they are no longer infatuated with this person, and the sex
is no longer quite as passionate as it once was. They might say that objectively
they appreciate that their partners remain physically attractive individuals
with winning personalities. Yet some special quality is sadly missing.
What is missing is that blissful feeling of romantic infatuation based on
mutual idealization. Some patients report that they once had those blissful
feelings during a honeymoon phase of the relationship that eventually ended.
Other patients report that they may never have had those blissful feelings
with their current partner. Either way, the yearning for romantic bliss may

80       the dynamics of infidelity

 motivate infidelity as they seek to reexperience or experience for the first
time the experience of romantic ecstasy that is painfully lacking from the
current relationship.
Helen Fisher (2004), the evolutionary anthropologist, has done ground­
breaking work on the psychology and neurophysiology of romantic love.
Fisher believes that romantic love is a basic human motivation, a fundamen-
tal mating drive, like sex or attachment. It motivates individuals to search for
a unique and special person with whom to mate. The scientific study of this
basic human motivation, she says, was obscured by a belief that romantic love
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is a social construct invented by the troubadours of medieval France. In con-

trast, William Jankowiak (1995) accumulated anthropological evidence that
romantic love exists in all cultures during all historical periods. Romantic love
appears to be a cross-cultural universal that has motivated humans to form
sexually exclusive relationships and appears to be an aspect of our evolved
reproductive psychology. Institutions such as arranged marriage may suppress
this universal desire by pressuring children to marry partners chosen by their
parents. Yet like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, some teenagers and young
adults will try to escape arranged marriages to marry someone with whom they
have fallen deeply, madly, and passionately in love.
Humans can lust after multiple partners simultaneously and also be
attached to multiple partners simultaneously. But it seems that most humans
can only be madly and passionately in love with one romantic partner at a
time. Romantic love may initially involve an obsessive focus on a unique
individual whom someone can’t get out of one’s mind (Acevedo & Aron,
2009). The love-possessed person focuses all attention exclusively on the
beloved to the detriment of everything and everyone else to the point of
intrusive thinking about that person (H. E. Fisher, 2004). Idealization makes
the beloved seem like the most desirable person in the world. Winning the
heart of the beloved is the greatest bliss, and losing it is the greatest tragedy
imaginable, so that romantic love can result in major mood swings.
Anxiously attached individuals appear to be more predisposed to falling
passionately in love, whereas avoidantly attached individuals are less likely to
do so (Cruces, Hawrylak, & Delegido, 2015). Practically speaking, romantic
love becomes problematic when an anxiously attached person falls in love
with an avoidantly attached person who doesn’t reciprocate, so the anxious
person’s love is unrequited (Sprecher & Fehr, 2011). The avoidant individual
predisposed to infidelity feels that the relationship with the betrayed part-
ner is smothering, suffocating, and stifling if it seems accompanied by angry
demands that seem to unreasonably limit one’s freedom and independence.
In contrast, the affair partner may seem to provide an opportunity for “free”
love that comes without strings attached and is based purely on a meeting of
minds and bodies without ulterior motives.

the wandering eyes of men and women      81

 Helen Fisher (2004) discovered that romantic love has a shelf life:
The honeymoon phase doesn’t last for more than 18 months. Nevertheless,
romantic love without the obsessive aspect can survive in long-term rela-
tionships and is associated with marital satisfaction, well-being, and high
self-esteem (Acevedo & Aron, 2009). Romantic love appears to involve
the activation of certain areas of the brain regulated by serotonin and the
dopamine-rich basal ganglia system and overlaps with regions of the brain
associated with maternal attachment (Acevedo, Aron, Fisher, & Brown,
2012; Aron et al., 2005).
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H. E. Fisher (2004) proposed that romantic love serves an adaptive bio-
logical function. It facilitates monogamy by bringing two people together in
an extremely intense passionate relationship in which there will be a high fre-
quency of sexual relations and the probability of impregnation would be high
without the use of birth control. By the time the honeymoon (i.e., obsessive)
phase wanes, it is likely that a strong attachment bond has been formed and
a child is either on the way or has already been born. It probably takes about
6 months for a strong bond of adult attachment to form, just as it takes about
6 months for an infant to form a strong bond of attachment to the mother.
Secure attachment requires developing a sense that a person is reli-
ably present to meet one’s emotional needs, and that takes time. Romantic
passion provides the glue that brings two people together long enough for a
bond of attachment to form. Romantic passion motivates intense involve-
ment with someone who is meeting, in a consistent and reliable way, not only
one’s sexual needs but also one’s need for affection and mutual understanding.
These are the right ingredients to facilitate the formation of a strong bond of
attachment. Romantic love appears to have the same effect on homosexual
as heterosexual individuals. It facilitates the formation of lasting bonds of
attachment that might inspire a couple to want to raise a family together.
By the time the mutual admiration society of the honeymoon period
wanes and people begin to see their partners for who they really are, warts
and all, it is not so easy to leave the relationship. The partners have become
too attached. It is no longer possible to end the relationship without experi-
encing considerable separation anxiety and painful feelings of loss. There is
now dependency on the romantic partner to meet one’s attachment needs, so
it is not easy to wean oneself from that dependency if it seems in retrospect
to have been an error of judgment to have fallen in love with this particular
person. Grand romantic affairs of the heart can end badly when it becomes
apparent that the object of romantic passion is not the person he or she
seemed to be in a state of romantic intoxication.
From an evolutionary perspective, the honeymoon period should be
short-lived. It would not be adaptive to be obsessively focused on a romantic
partner once a newborn has arrived. The infant now needs to be the focus

82       the dynamics of infidelity

 of exclusive obsessive attention—what the psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott
(1956) called primary maternal preoccupation. Unfortunately, the limited shelf
life of obsessive romantic passion creates a risk factor for infidelity if the
resulting attachment relationship is not a secure one after the mutual ide-
alization dissipates. For those predisposed to dichotomous thinking, there
is a risk that idealization will turn into devaluation (see Kernberg, 1984, on
sudden swings between idealization and devaluation in the face of narcissistic
deflation among those with borderline ego organization). The relationship
becomes unstable when mutual idealization turns into mutual devaluation.
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The residual feelings of romantic love that remain as the obsessive

aspects fade and the secure attachment that has evolved provide an incentive
to work at learning to live with a partner’s frustrating imperfections. This is
easier for those who have transcended dichotomous thinking and understand
that nobody is perfect. In addition, securely attached individuals are likely to
possess the reflective functioning and communication skills to negotiate the
perpetual conflicts that inevitably arise. The ability to accept each other “as is”
and constructively negotiate conflict strengthens the bond of attachment.
Romantic love conceived as an emotional operating system with its
unique triggers, neural circuitry, and evolved function may function as a serial
monogamist that looks for a new object of romantic infatuation once the
honeymoon phase fades. The need to always be in love, sometimes as an anti-
depressant, may create a compulsion to replace a fading love with a new and
exciting love that qualifies as a “love addiction” (i.e., needing to live one’s life
in a constant state of romantic ecstasy; H. E. Fisher, 2014). During the obses-
sive phase of romantic infatuation, sexual exclusivity is easy. Obsessions are
quite successful at focusing the mind on one thing and that thing alone—it’s
almost impossible to focus on anything else. During the obsessive phase of
romantic love, nobody else seems nearly as desirable. Once this phase ends,
it becomes possible to notice other desirable individuals again and to begin to
make comparisons. The comparisons are not always fair because one is com-
paring a long-term romantic partner whose imperfections are well-known,
who has been seen at both their best and worst, with new romantic prospects
whom one has seen only at their best and can be idealized.
It is human nature to wish to reexperience the obsessive phase of
romantic love with someone new and to repeat what can be a once-in-a-
lifetime peak experience (i.e., the vulnerability to the high of love addic-
tion). This creates a situation in which one may wish to maintain the
attachment bond to the current partner while experiencing romantic bliss
with someone new. As such, there is a split not so much between love and
lust but between attachment and romantic love. The relationship with the
attachment partner remains a somewhat asexual one with a parental sur-
rogate, whereas the affair partner meets the need for a passionate romance

the wandering eyes of men and women      83

 with someone with whom one does not share familial responsibilities. Such
arrangements may fall apart if a betrayed partner doesn’t want to be treated
as only an asexual parental surrogate or if the unfaithful partner ultimately
prefers to end the asexual relationship with the parental surrogate and com-
mit to a monogamous arrangement with the affair partner with whom there
is more romantic passion.
The romantic love circuit may reflect a paradox. On the one hand,
romantic love motivates serial monogamy—looking for a new object of roman-
tic passion as the honeymoon phase fades—because it is human nature to want
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to reexperience peak experiences to the point of making us vulnerable to love

addictions. On the other hand, romantic love may be inherently possessive
because it craves validation of being in an absolutely unique and special rela-
tionship that could not be replicated with anyone else. That feeling of abso-
lute uniqueness may be an illusion, but it may be a necessary illusion to sustain
the residual feelings of romantic love once the obsessive phase is over.
Human vanity may demand the affirmation of being at least one special
person’s favorite lover. Sexual exclusivity says to the world that a couple feels
they are each other’s favorite lover and so will forgo others to be together exclu-
sively. Partners may maintain a feeling that they are each other’s favorite lover
by derogating attractive alternatives (Lydon, Meana, Sepinwall, Richards, &
Mayman, 1999). The stronger the identification with the relationship and
with being a member of a couple, the more likely that responses to relational
threat will be prorelational (e.g., ignoring attractive alternatives; Linardatos
& Lydon, 2011). Of course, monogamy becomes a prison if it feels as though
one is trapped having sex with a least favorite lover for the rest of one’s life.
For that reason, the loss of romantic connection is a risk factor for infidelity.
Sexual exclusivity may be required to preserve a partner’s need to feel
that he or she is a unique, special, and irreplaceable person who is respected
and admired even if no longer an object of obsessive adoration or infatua-
tion. Romantic love gratifies human narcissism, the sense of having won an
intense sexual competition for an extremely desirable partner because one
is an exceptionally desirable romantic partner oneself. Narcissistic pathol-
ogy appears to be associated with an increased vulnerability to love addiction
as a means of reflating deflated grandiose fantasies (Dubrow-Eichel, 1993).
Pathological narcissism appears to mediate the influence of insecure attach-
ment on compulsive behaviors such as bulimia (Dakanalis, Clerici, & Carrà,
2016). Infidelity may be a way the insecurely attached restore self-worth by
resorting to a narcissistic solution to the problem of insecure attachment.
Unfortunately, although infidelity may be one partner’s narcissistic
solution, it is the betrayed partner’s narcissistic trauma. Infidelity, especially
for romantic love, bursts the narcissistic illusions that romantic love supports.
Infidelity may signify that one is no longer thought sufficiently desirable to be

84       the dynamics of infidelity

 worth the sacrifice of sexual exclusivity so that infidelity constitutes a major
blow to feelings of self-worth. Exactly how much narcissistic disappointment
and deflation a person can tolerate and still remain committed to a romantic
partner will be variable from one individual to another and from one marital
situation to another.

SEXUAL MIND READING AND SEXUAL MORALITY

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Not surprisingly, research suggests that men possess more favorable atti-
tudes than women toward sexual behaviors such as infidelity, pornography,
and casual sex (Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, & Michaels, 1994). Women pos-
sess more favorable attitudes toward monogamy and long-term commitment
than men do (Laumann et al., 1994). Thus, each sex tends to disapprove of
the sexual tendencies that the other prefers more strongly. As a consequence,
men, especially those who are avoidantly attached, tend to lack empathy for
women’s desires for intimacy and commitment. That lack is only exacerbated
by the angrily demanding and controlling way that anxiously attached women
tend to express those frustrated desires. Such men tend to see women’s desire
for emotional intimacy and commitment as reflecting a shameful neediness.
Avoidant men then tend to withdraw from suffocating and smothering women
that seem to infringe too much on their freedom and independence. Avoidant
men tend to lose their tempers when anxiously attached women who feel
rejected attempt to block their hostile withdrawal and can become physically
abusive (Genest & Mathieu, 2014).
Women, especially anxiously attached women, may lack empathy for
men’s sexual frustration, especially when intimacy-avoidant men are feeling
frustrated about not getting enough casual sex or sexual variety. Anxiously
attached women take it as personal rejection that diminishes their feelings
of sexual desirability. They may be disgusted by aspects of male sexuality that
seem too impersonal, cold, perverse, sexually objectifying, and demeaning
to women. Anxious attachment appears to be associated with greater disgust
sensitivity, whereas avoidant attachment is associated with weaker moral
concerns (Koleva, Selterman, Iyer, Ditto, & Graham, 2014). Anxious women
may send men to psychotherapists to “fix” their fears of emotional intimacy as
well as their “disgusting” sexual tendencies. Those men may think women are
the ones who need to see a psychotherapist to “fix” their excessive neediness
and sexual prudery. The lack of mutual understanding then results in power
struggles, with both partners trying to fix each other to make the other more
like themself. It’s a no-win situation.
Gender benders may occur when it is the women who are avoidant and
the men who are anxiously attached. Avoidantly attached women who can

the wandering eyes of men and women      85

 separate love and lust and enjoy casual sex “like a man” may be perceived as
unfeminine or “slutty.” Anxiously attached men who are extremely rejection-
sensitive, shy, passive, or needy of reassurance may seem “nice” but not virile
or masculine. Partners can judge and shame each other both for not fitting
the gender role stereotype and for fitting it. Either way, it results in commu-
nication breakdown. Although sex differences may remain between gay men
and lesbian women in strength of sex drive (see Baumeister et al., 2001),
differences in attachment style may generate the same relational conflicts
in same-sex relationships as they do in opposite-sex relationships. It can be
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problematic to generalize about the sexuality of all gay and lesbian individu-
als because their sexuality may be shaped as much by their attachment style
as their sexual orientation.
The tendency to judge a partner whose sexuality is different from one’s
own reflects a failure of cross-attachment style as much as cross-sex or cross-
sexual orientation mind reading, the inability to accurately understand and
empathize with a person’s attachment vulnerabilities and the sexual pre­
dispositions that attempt to compensate for those attachment vulnerabilities.
Error management theory suggests that there may be an adaptive basis for biases
of cross-sex mind reading (Haselton & Buss, 2000). Heterosexual women
may tend toward commitment skepticism because they assume men are more
oriented toward short-term mating, whereas heterosexual men may over­
sexualize relationships in the hope of finding women who aren’t biased against
casual sex as they might presume most women would be (Geher, 2009). The
discovery that men aren’t as commitment oriented or that women aren’t as
oriented toward casual sex as they initially seemed to be is experienced as
deception and provokes moral outrage. Such gender differences may be mod-
erated by differences in attachment style if avoidantly attached individuals
pretend to be more emotionally available than they really are, whereas anx-
iously attached individuals pretend to be more independent.
Janice and Jason were lawyers in their late 20s with demanding careers.
They came for couples therapy because they hadn’t had sex in months. Arguing
about who was at fault never led anywhere. Janice said that she didn’t miss sex
with Jason that much because when she was angry with him, she wasn’t in the
mood for sex—and she was angry with him all the time. Jason faulted Janice
for this, noting that he was always in the mood for sex whether he was angry
or not and he would not punish her as she punished him by withholding sex
when angry. Janice felt criticized for being too avoidant of sexual intimacy,
while Jason felt faulted for being too needy for sexual intimacy.
I asked each of them how often they would want to have sex in an ideal
world in which they weren’t overburdened with work. Janice said that once
a week on weekends would be fine; Jason said daily would be his preference.
They both looked shocked and in disbelief that the other needed sex as little

86       the dynamics of infidelity

 or as much as she or he did. They looked to me to tell them whose sex drive was
normal and whose was too high or too low and perhaps needed to be adjusted
to a healthy level. I said that sex drive is variable from person to person so that
there was no point debating whose sex drive was normal or pathological, sexu-
ally repressed or sexually liberated. There was no point making the other feel
bad about his or her sexuality because they each seemed fine with the strength
of their own sex drives. The question, then, is how couples whose sex drives
are mismatched can find a constructive way to negotiate that difference.
Janice and Jason both agreed that they could meet somewhere in the
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middle and try to have sex two or three times a week, but Janice added the
caveat that it would only be possible for her to have sex at that frequency if
they were getting along reasonably well. Fortunately, Janice and Jason were
able to openly address the frustrating difference in their sexual psychologies
early in their relationship before it became a significant risk factor for infidel-
ity. Jason was considering accepting a temporary appointment working for
a prestigious judge in another city, and Janice wondered whether she could
trust Jason to remain faithful in a long-distance relationship if they were
no longer having a sexual relationship. Janice knew that remaining faithful
would be easy for her because she didn’t miss sex all that much when she was
busy with work but was uncertain whether Jason’s frustration tolerance was
up to the job given the strength of his sex drive. Jason reassured her that he
could refrain from infidelity even if they weren’t having sex that frequently
but that he didn’t want to commit to a sexless marriage for the rest of his life.
What motivated Jason and Janice to resolve their differences? Their
sexual conflict threatened their attachment security so that they were moti-
vated to seek couples therapy to avoid a breakup. I helped them reflect on
the impact of their sexual preferences on each other’s sense of attachment
security. Janice couldn’t feel secure if feeling pressured into having sex when
angry. Coercive pressure only made her feel smothered, so she responded
avoidantly. Jason couldn’t feel secure experiencing Janice as emotionally
unavailable for sexual intimacy. Sexual rejection increased Jason’s anxious
attachment, so he felt even needier and became more sexually demanding.
Treatment helped them realize that they had to meet somewhere in the mid-
dle if they were ever to feel securely attached to each another.
When frustrated, there is a tendency to judge and pathologize a roman-
tic partner’s sexual and romantic predispositions for not being more like,
and therefore more compatible with, one’s own. Overcoming egocentrism is
challenging when feeling sexually rejected and frustrated or worried about
sexual betrayal. Nevertheless, securely attached individuals are more likely
to possess the reflective functioning and communication skills to construc-
tively negotiate conflicts about differences in sex drive, attachment needs,
and romantic yearnings.

the wandering eyes of men and women      87

 CONCLUSION

Mentalizing the perspective of someone whose sexuality or attachment

style is different from one’s own requires overcoming egocentrism. Are there
individuals who find it particularly difficult to overcome their egocentrism
to empathize with the perspective of others who are different? As it turns
out, individuals high in narcissism, a personality trait associated with insecure
attachment, find it particularly difficult to overcome their own egocentrism to
empathize with others. Narcissists are also more inclined to be unfaithful. The
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psychology of infidelity cannot be fully understood without understanding the

psychology of narcissism as a strategy for coping with underlying attachment
insecurities (i.e., don’t put all your eggs in one basket). Narcissism is one of
the key personality traits that form what is known as the “Dark Triad”—the
subject of our next chapter.

88       the dynamics of infidelity